Top Former Pilot Executives Got Target Letters, Civil Suit Charges

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A filing in a civil suit in Kentucky states that two top former executives of Pilot Flying J have received target letters as part of the investigation of a rebate skimming scheme that has already resulted in guilty pleas by 10 other former employees of the Knoxville firm.
In a 73-page amended complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court, attorneys for two New Jersey firms, National Retail Transportation and Keystone Freight, charge that target letters were sent to former Pilot President Mark Hazelwood and John Freeman, who was Pilot's national vice president of sales.
The amended complaint also repeats charges that Pilot Chief Executive Officer James A. Haslam knew of the scheme and approved of it.
Target letters are generally sent to those persons being investigated for suspected criminal violations. They are not formal charges and neither Freeman nor Hazelwood have been indicted. Their lawyers did not respond to a request for comment Monday but in the past they have denied their clients received target letters.
As spelled out in court filings, top Pilot executives and sales staff routinely reduced the rebates promised to truckers. Pilot already has reached a $92 million settlement with the federal government because of the rebate reduction scheme.
The filing comes in one of a handful of remaining civil suits against Pilot, all filed following an April 15, 2013 raid on the travel stop chain's  headquarters. A subsequent court filing included lengthy excerpts from transcripts of secretly taped Pilot sales meetings in which the rebate reduction plan was openly discussed.
Lawyers for Haslam and Pilot have filed motions to have the suits dismissed.
The lengthy amended complaint filed Friday also names more than a half dozen other Pilot staffers that the trucking firms' attorneys charge were involved in a conspiracy to deprive the truckers of promised payments. Though some have been previously identified, many have not.
The filing charges violations of federal and state racketeering laws, fraud and violations of New Jersey consumer protection statutes.